sewing, fabric, quilts

Ombre Sunshine Quilt

Lately I’ve been writing about how much I love Moda’s new fabric line called “Ombre”, designed by V and Co. These fabrics are gradient solids which, when cut up, look like you’ve used multiple solids. I really like using these fabrics and designed this quilt around two colors from this line – Honey and Graphite Grey – and I’m so pleased with the results.

I had this design in mind for a while – to do staggered Missouri star blocks. I worked the design all out on graph paper and, because of all the varying negative space on this quilt, had to really do a lot of figuring and calculating – something I really like. No two rows were alike. There were some miscuts and ripping out, though. But that happens when you are not using a pattern!

One of the things I love best about this quilt is the grey gingham binding. I have a nice stash of small size ginghams and I think they make the sweetest bindings.

The background fabric is Robert Kaufman Kona Cotton Solid in White. Because of all the white in the background, I used Warm and White batting, a pure white batting from the Warm and Natural company which doesn’t create a dull background behind bright white fabrics. And it has the same feeling and low loft of regular Warm and Natural batting.

For the background fabric, I used this adorable flannel backing in Organic Cotton from Cloud 9 fabrics. The yellow and grey elephants were so cute and just matched the Ombre colors so well. The flannel is soft and makes such a nice backing for a child’s quilt.

The stars were made up entirely of Half Square Triangles, which finished at 2″ after being sewn in. This is what I used as my quilting guide, so the overall quilting grid is 2″. I used 50 wt. White Aurifil thread and quilted at a stitch length of 3.5. The quilting makes such a nice texture and drape.

The finished size of this quilt is 36″ x 52″ . I love how it turned out and have listed it in the shop.

Your work is just stunning. I haven’t made a quilt for about a year and now am inspired to get going again! Do you pre wash your fabrics? I don’t like to, but am wondering if the flannel back will shrink differently than the front.

Kathleen: Thank you so much! I am a prewasher. I want my fabrics to go through the same wash cycle that they will have to do through when they are a quilt. If the fabric is going to shrink, fray, alter or bleed in any possible way, I want it to do it before it’s sewn into a quilt. So because of that, I prewash every single piece of fabric I buy. That is why I do not buy jelly rolls, charm packs, etc. They cannot be prewashed. There are definitely two schools of thought on prewashing and a lot of people do not prewash, but I just simply don’t want any surprises. And for most of my quilts, which are more “modern” types of styles, I do not want that antique look that comes with the fabric shrinking and puckering. In fact, I prewash my batting so it doesn’t shrink, just for that reason. Hope you get quilting again!

Kathleen: I wash all my fabrics on cold, gentle cycle. Then I tumble dry on low – just like I would when I wash a finished quilt. Then I iron well. For the batting, I soak in the washer on cold water, spin dry and put in the dryer on delicate until dry. I can do this with Warm and Natural batting and it holds up great. You can’t really do this with Hobbs – it falls apart a bit. If you use Hobbs, you would have to soak in the washer or a tub or utility sink and then squeeze out the water and then dry. That’s why I use Warm and Natural batting. This process is really quick – it’s not a pain and it avoids the 3% shrinkage you would otherwise get when the quilt gets washed. For antique looking quilts, this fine, but I don’t like it with my more modern style quilts. Hope this helps!

This is lovely! I really like your use of the ombre. Would it be ok if I included a photo from your post in my upcoming newsletter where I’m featuring star quilts? I’d link back to your post of course…. Thanks for considering.